Posted on 06/01/2023 6:51:15 AM PDT by CFW
CHICAGO — During an earnings call with Walgreens investors earlier this year, the company’s chief financial officer opined that his fellow executives may have overstated the effects of organized shoplifting rings on its operations.
“Maybe we cried too much last year,” James Kehoe said.
Good luck balancing that cheery, non-crying analysis with what you see when you walk into the company’s freshly redesigned store at 2 East Roosevelt in downtown Chicago.
In what was once a typical Walgreens, there are now just two short aisles of so-called “essentials” where “customers may shop for themselves.” If you want anything else—a bottle of booze, a deodorant brand deemed “non-essential”—you’ll need to order it at a kiosk and pick it up at the counter.
(Excerpt) Read more at cwbchicago.com ...
Won’t be long!
Yep- all they are doing is making it a little more inc9nvenient for the thugs to take what they want, but take what they want they will do
Soon Walgreens will have the customer flow of a Waffle House.
It doesn’t even seem that long ago to me where you would pay for your gas AFTER you pumped it. I wonder what really changed?
Walgreens is woke. So screw ‘em
The “clerk behind the counter” could be an AI or a touchscreen, as seen in many fast-food restaurants.
A return to the concept of the days of old when you placed your order at the counter and the clerk retrieved and boxes up your purchases
Those are called the "Reparations" aisles.
That’s the way it was done in Hooterville. Mr Douglas never complained. So I guess it worked.
If they had a hole with a Guillotine guarding it they would still go for it
Put the cashiers behind bullet-proof glass, and make all cash transactions through a slot, ala check-cashing places. That’s how gas stations were set up in Homestead, FL, when I got there, 40 years sgo. Everyone has to pay for the less than 1% that can’t seem to play by the rules.
Going back to the 1800’s frontier stores where everything was behind the counter and you had to ask for it.
City of Chicongo will probably pass a bylaw that only gunpoint robberies over like $20,000 will be prosecuted, so as long as the armed robber stays below the minimum...
That will kill unplanned purchasing by the customers lowering revenue.
I don’t expect it to be!
I could see MOST retail in “high crime” areas going this way.
A kiosk, then curbside/ counter pick up. Very little shoplifting that way.
And the accessible “essential” items being very low quantities on the shelf stock, constantly replenished.
the upside is that retail is able survive in these areas.
the downside for them is they are going to get very few impulse buys and add ons.
I don’t think that’ll be such a bad thing, if you’re trying to prevent shoplifting.
No more squeezing the Charmin, so Mr. Whipple should be happy.
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